


and all we are is the little pieces our world sticks together

by JamlessGenius



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Child Abuse, Firelord Zuko (Avatar), Gen, Mentioned Ozai (Avatar), Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, POV Sokka (Avatar), The Gaang Learns How Zuko Got The Scar (Avatar), The Massacre Of The 41st Division (Avatar), oops it’s definitely child abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:08:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27637991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JamlessGenius/pseuds/JamlessGenius
Summary: “Who would dare to hurt a prince?Suddenly, the angry red scar seems to stand out a little more against the firelight. Sokka isn’t quite sure why.”
Relationships: Sokka & Zuko (Avatar), The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 993
Collections: Quality Fics





	and all we are is the little pieces our world sticks together

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to everybody on discord who got subjected to me screaming about this:)

Chit Sang stares after Zuko’s retreating figure.

Honestly? Sokka doesn’t know what to make of him.

But there’s something hard and flinty in his eyes, and Sokka is a little concerned. 

“You okay? I mean, I know he’s your ex-prince and all but-“

“He’s a traitor,” Chit Sang hisses, like a pot left boiling. He’s angry and it’s so clear to Sokka that it hurts. For a second, he almost sees Katara. “A traitor to a line like his father’s is welcomed. But the rumors of his mother’s? He’s betrayed them.”

“What?”

“He didn’t save them. He knew and he didn’t do enough.”

And Chit Sang walks away, not even looking back.

Sokka doesn’t even think about it too hard. Not while they’re fighting to escape, or even when one of his father’s men gets close enough to Zuko, up in his face with threats and insults. He’s focused on Suki, and his family-

And then that focus needs to break, because Katara is practically hissing at Zuko for helping him and for the first time, he realizes that Zuko just... takes it.

People have insulted him left and right since he joined and he doesn’t even take it with this newfound awkwardness like Zuko always has but... he takes it like he’s used to it.

But Zuko is a prince, so that’s the dumbest idea Sokka has ever had.

Who would dare to hurt a prince?

Suddenly, the angry red scar seems to stand out a little more against the firelight. Sokka isn’t quite sure why.

He isn’t quite sure why he stares at his sister with a longing, when she’s insane and she hurts and destroys-

But he does. And Sokka wonders if Katara had ever hurt him the way Crazy Blue Fire did to Zuko, if he’d still love her that way, if he’d be quite so desperate to get her away from being bad.

Zuko loves his family. He loves their family.

Sokka knows that he’s reckless and loyal and a million other things-

Why would he be so willing to kill his father?

* * *

Sokka doesn’t revisit that question until they’re done, and everyone is safe and Lord Evil is dead. But logic and reasoning are not to be ignored. And the question nags and tears at his mind until he can’t control it. 

He needs to know. Who hurt Zuko? What was it, that he reassured himself was wrong and undeserved? 

They’re at a meeting, a reunion, really. 

Fire Lord Zuko had to clean out a rebellion, and he’d insisted on doing it alone. They hadn’t even heard until Ozai was a corpse and Azula was in critical condition, possibly to never wake up.

He was the only one of the group who’d fought two wars, but he still lets Toph climb him like the lemur she is and gets embarrassed by compliments.

Sokka just wishes he’d been there. Zuko is like a boomerang, the wood forged weapon. Chipped and stripped of his edges, destroyed to make a destroyer. 

But unlike a boomerang, he cut himself out of the system. And hurt himself, badly. How can someone with so much loyalty and love to give get injured, have a sister try to kill him, know people could celebrate his death?

“The scar is on the wrong side,” Zuko laughed at old wanted posters and set them inside the royal portrait hall. What kind of family forgets where shit like that is? 

He can’t claim to understand any of this. A part of him wants to ask. 

Another part, tired of the confrontation and trauma, wants to forget that Zuko is chipped wood. Or, well... burnt. That part wants to dig on its own.

Considering that part tends to be his tactful side, maybe that’s what he needs to do.

* * *

He gets his first piece of information when Zuko actually attends a military memorial. Given the way the others watch, confused, they’ve also had their questions.

Zuko has never been comfortable publicly honoring soldiers who fought in a war that built on genocide. But for these ones, he organized it. Toph tilts her head towards him, unseeing but unnecessary eyes blinking slowly.

“Why would Sparky set this one up?”

“I dunno,” Aang shrugged. “I mean people on the fire nation side lost their lives too. That’s a loss, to someone somewhere.”

“Right, the painful in betweens of a war. You disregard each other’s humanity in the battlefield if you are to keep your own.” Suki solemnly says, gaping at the young faces of the so-called 41st.

“They were just kids. How did they end up like this?” Aang looks at them mournfully. “Maybe we could have been friends.”

“Weren’t we all that?” Katara asks with a bitter sort of laugh. “We were all _just kids_.”

“I’m not surprised, he’s finally set this one up,” Suki shrugs. “I hated them but they really were just trying to be good citizens.”

“Proof he’s stronger than what his father was,” Toph murmurs. “And what he’d done.”

“What?”

“You guys didn’t know? Snoozles, that shit was everywhere,” Toph’s expression dips to unamused. Well, clearly not everywhere if they hadn’t heard it.

“What?”

“Who hadn’t heard it? The horror story of the royal family? Mom and grandpa mysteriously die the same night and three years later the son gets banished with a brand new scar? What family wouldn’t whisper about that and hug their kids a little tighter?”

Suki looks at Toph, horrified. 

“No! Maybe nobility did- but we- _no_ -“

“His _father_ gave him that scar?” Aang sounds horribly small. 

“He literally said that Sparky couldn’t go home til he captured you. Several years before you even appeared,” Toph tilts her head, confused. “You said he told you. The whole honor thing?”

Sokka is going to throw up. 

Katara clenches her hands so hard that the water in a bowl turns to ice, causing several nearby people to shriek in fear. When they were younger, Aang at the level of unadulterated rage splayed across his normally cheerful features would have long been in avatar state.

“So you know that much,” a cold voice behind them states. Sokka is enough of a man to admit to the unholy screech he let out.

It’s Mai, looking more gloomy than usual.

“It’s not like it was a secret,” Toph says, almost analytical.

“No,” Mai says, staring at the portraits. She looks into the eyes of a girl. She’s smiling widely, front tooth chipped, and the name beneath her image reads Homura. A bright flame, snuffed. 

Sokka shouldn’t feel guilty. But a small piece of him does. They were brainwashed and tricked into this. 

And now they’re dead.

“I suppose it isn’t, huh,” Ty Lee adds, hair out of its usual braid. The severe bun ages their bright friend. She, too, is dressed darkly. She picks up a stick of incense that was about to burn out, bringing it closer to the fire. 

In the other room, Sokka can see Zuko talking to mothers and fathers, consoling them. 

In that group, he sees Chit Sang.

He decides not to pry.

* * *

Zuko finally does tell them, months later. 

“I... was thirteen. And I wanted to go to a war meeting-“

And oh- 

He’d wanted to impress his father and be a good leader and he was just a child and it was wrong-

They don’t say they knew because they really don’t know. They don’t know that aching disappointment feels like. What it means to have a parent who would hurt you when you were _on your knees_ and _begging_ -

Zuko gets cut off by a choking sound. It’s his own. It’s because he’s covered in a tangle of SokkaandTophandAangandKataraandSuki. And they know that they’re hugging him because damn it-

They’re his family now, and they’re never letting him down like that.


End file.
